Posted by admin on September 20th, 2008 in Food, Parenting, Politics

Now that my youngest has hit 13, I can now officially call myself the mother of teens.  That means I’m done with the little kid part of growing up and sweet smells of sleeping children.  (ok, my kids don’t stink – but you know…)

With the Palin issue swirling in the media and beyond, it got me to thinking about parenting issues and how they differ when you’re dealing with teenagers in your house.  The whole world is digging into her life and passing judgments about how she is conducting the business of her family. Rightly so to a certain extent, she is after all, running for Vice-President of the United States. So, I began to think about parenting teens and how it differed from parenting in general.

When my kids were smaller, the parental discussions swirled around issues like, which preschools were the best, whether your kid should be in a structured league versus playing outside.  Also of huge interest was discipline and anything about pooping or eating.   Now that my kids have grown, the issues have grown-up too.

Now the issues are things like sex, drugs, college, careers and dare I say it – driving.  There is also the painfully obvious difference that they don’t want to listen to you anymore.  I’m not saying they don’t listen, but their whole focus in life is to move away from you, so… they start not listening.  Oh my gosh. This one is hard.  (or is it that my head is hard)

So, you have a compounding effect. Just when you get the hang of “being the boss” and you’ve figured out what you believe and how you’re going to implement it, the rug is pulled.  You have teenagers.  You have to change how you parent.  The characteristics that make for a good parent of a toddler are not necessarily the same qualities that make for good parenting of a teen.

As I figure out what makes for a good parent of a teen – I’ll let you know.  This kinda snuck (is that a word?) up on me.  I was just getting used to the tween years and railing against Britney Spears look-alikes and M rated video games.  By the time I figure out the teen years, they’ll be in college and my arm isn’t long enough to reach them!  I’ll probably bribe them with baked goods.  That’s the one thing that works at every age.  Below is my recipe for brownies, I call it: Bribe Brownies; guaranteed to work on children from the ages of 2 – 90.

BRIBE BROWNIES
Preheat oven to 325 degrees

1.    Melt together 2 sticks Butter with 4 oz. unsweetened chocolate.
Take off heat and let cool.
2.    Stir in 2 cups sugar.  Add 4 beaten eggs & 1 tsp vanilla.
3.    Stir in ½ cup all-purpose flour & ½ tsp salt.
4.    Add 2 cups nuts (if desired)
5.    Bake in 8” square pan (greased) for 50 minutes.
Let cool before taking out of pan (good luck with that)